Is the Occult Invasion a Sign of the End Times?

Tom: Welcome to our ongoing discussion of Dave Hunt’s book Occult Invasion: The Subtle Seduction of the World and Church. The Bible is very clear that there will come a time when the entire world will submit to a world leader, one who will be empowered by occult abilities (powers, lying signs and wonders) for the purpose of deceiving the masses and subjecting them to his absolute control. Second Thessalonians 2 and other scriptures lay this out quite clearly. But this doesn’t happen overnight; there has to be some preparation, and that’s what your book addresses. You’re simply documenting the preparation that’s been taking place, and today we’re going to talk about this preparation with regard to the occult seduction of our youth. But I think it might be helpful if we provide our listeners with some biblical background for understanding what’s taking place.

Dave, for the sake of some of our listeners who aren’t that familiar with the Bible, can you give a brief summary of what the Scriptures say concerning the rise of Antichrist?

Dave: Antichrist has been the subject of a lot of exciting films, but it’s not a fictional…he’s not a fictional character. The idea does come from the Bible, and in a brief program, how can we say much about him? Anti- is a Greek prefix that not only means “opposed to,” but also means “in place of.” I believe Antichrist will pretend to be Christ and will be perceived as such – not the resurrected Christ, but probably a reincarnation of the Christ consciousness.

Now, there is a genuine battle going on between God and Satan, and the Bible tells us Satan – Lucifer, son of the morning – he was the most powerful, beautiful, wisest being that God…well, I don’t know that I’d say “wise,” but he’s [the most] intelligent being that God ever made, and he rebelled against God. And he came to this earth, deceived Adam and Eve in the Garden – well, he didn’t deceive Adam, he deceived Eve. And there is a real battle between God and Satan for the minds and the souls of man. God is represented in this battle by a Man, who is also God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, who became a Man through the virgin birth, but didn’t cease to be God. He’s the one and only God-Man – the only begotten Son of God, the Bible calls Him. Satan is also represented by a man, the Antichrist, who I believe will be the embodiment of Satan. Satan will really possess and indwell this man. The Bible says that this Antichrist (he’s called the man of lawlessness, wickedness), he will sit in the temple of God, declare that he is God. So we know the Temple is going to be rebuilt in Jerusalem. He will put his image in there; everyone that doesn’t bow down to worship it will be killed. This is going to be a totalitarian system.

Now, the Bible says there will be a one-world government and one-world religion. Again, that’s not some dream, you know, that the Bible came up with. Of course, the biblical prophecies are true. They are fulfilled, they’ve been fulfilled, they’re being fulfilled. I wish that we could document, but we don’t have time…. You could go way back in the – I think around 1921 when the CFR, Council for Foreign Relations, was established. I think in the next year, 1922, in their journal, they said that there has to be a one-world government. Some of the wealthiest Americans, the founders of the American industry, actually funded the communist revolution in Russia. Our leaders have literally been working for a world government for a long time. And if you didn’t know what the Bible said about the Antichrist and that this world government would be headed by him, you would say it’s a good idea! We should do away with national loyalties; that’s where wars come from, and why don’t we just get all together and be unified and so forth?

So the Bible says this is going to happen. The world has been working for it – this is really part of man’s rebellion against God. God said that He’s going to pull this thing together, He’s going to bring peace when Christ, His Man, rules the world from Jerusalem, from the throne of David. But the world says, “No, we’re going to solve our problems, and we’re going to have our own man rule the world.”

And I think it was not too many years ago that someone at the United Nations – I don’t remember who it was – but he said, “Look, I don’t care whether he’s a devil or god: if somebody can bring peace to this world, can bring this whole thing together, we’ll follow him.”

I know that a couple of 16-year-old men were in Jerusalem not too long ago on a tour, and they asked for a rabbi who could speak English, and so they were brought to a rabbi who could speak English. And they said, “You know, we’re Christians. We believe that Jesus is the Messiah. We believe that He has come once and died for the sins of the world. He’s coming again.”

And the rabbi said, “Well, we don’t believe that. We believe the messiah is yet to come.”

And so these young men asked the rabbi, “Well, how would you recognize him? How would you know who he is when he comes?”

And they said chills ran up and down their spines as he began to describe Antichrist. And the bottom line for him was this is a man who will bring peace; whoever he is, he’s going to bring peace to the world.

So the Bible foretells a false peace that will be established, but as you said, this doesn’t come about without preparation. So we’ve got – and the chapter on the seduction of youth, we talk first of all about Robert Mueller…

Tom: Dave, I just want to back up a little bit, because I know a lot of the information in this chapter is applicable to this aspect, and that is what is the ultimate offer from the standpoint of the Antichrist to the rest of the world. Really, what I’m trying to lead you to is going back to the Garden: the idea that we will be as gods, and how that develops not only the gods in terms of autonomy, but power – lying signs and wonders, as we’ve mentioned from 2 Thessalonians 2.

Dave: Yeah, well, of course the whole battle between God and Satan began, Isaiah 14 says, when Lucifer said, “I will be like the Most High.” We’ve talked about it before. It’s impossible to dream – how many “Most Highs” can you have? So Lucifer did away with monotheism, one true God, and he introduced polytheism. He said there could be many of them, and then he told Eve, “You could be one of the gods, too.” And this is the major lie that forms the foundation for all the cults and of course especially the occult. So Satan is trying to tell man, “You’re not separated from God. There’s no God out there who’s the creator of everything. You really are little gods yourselves!” It is the whole goal of science, for example – if science can conquer the atom and conquer space and conquer disease and finally we reign supreme as master of the universe, master of our own fate, there’s no limit to what we can do. So of course psychic power, occultism, comes in, because Satan says, “You can be a little god.” Well, then he’s got to somehow prove it, and in all of our universities, mostly the university laboratories, for example, and parapsychology, they’re experimenting with psychic powers to try to show that there is some incredible power of the mind, we just don’t know how to use it, but it’s bigger than atomic power.

And so this is really the lie, and Satan is going to demonstrate this to the ultimate in Antichrist who will have all the powers of Satan and be able to demonstrate them, and this will be the promise… “Look, I made it! You guys can, too!” And he will sit in the Temple of God and declare that he is in fact God. He will be worshipped as such.

Tom: And… but the bait here is, you know, just as you said, it’s not just the Antichrist himself, but just as he is, he’s offering that to everybody else. So that will be incredibly attractive.

You know, it’s…you’d wonder if he’s going to pull all the religions together. You’d say, “Well, what about these monotheistic religions?” You know, Judaism, Islam – how could he attract individuals…Christianity, which believes in a personal transcendent God?

Dave: Well, of course, there won’t be real Christians here. There will be some who become Christians, and they will pay for it with their blood. They will be killed…

Tom: Right, but I’m talking about the preparation part here.

Dave: We have – well, professing Christians, at least, who say that we’re little gods, in spite of the fact that the Bible says, we’ve quoted it before in these programs, I’m sure – Jeremiah:10:10-11 [10] But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation. [11] Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.
See All..., God says, “I am the Creator of this universe. You say to the gods” (that’s with a little g) “who haven’t created the universe, they will perish from under this heaven and from this earth.” And yet we have people today sitting on radio or television, professing Christians, who say, “We are little gods.” And they insist upon that. Well, they will perish then. Anybody that claims to be a god and he is not the creator of the universe, he’s finished. He’s a rebel against God.

Well, you say, “How could Muslims, who believe in one god, how could Christians who believe in one God…” I don’t know how they can make that switch in their minds, but nevertheless, they have bought this lie, and they do this.

Now, I think it’s rather clear the way this is coming about in our society: the drug movement, of course, which we talked a little bit about in the past, you know – we had young people who were disillusioned, turned off with society, turned off with religion. They dropped acid, and suddenly they were catapulted into a spiritual dimension that they hadn’t even known existed. They met spirit beings. Some of them were taught TM, they were taught astrology – I mean, I’ve interviewed these people. These were real experiences that they had, and they began to believe that they were more than just a lump of protein molecules wired with nerves; that somehow they had some capacity…they even thought they got out of their bodies. Shirley MacLaine talks about getting out of her body, you know, and she says that she’s a god and so forth. That opened them to the cosmic gospel of the gurus from the East who came and taught this. Yogananda brought yoga, the self-realization fellowship. The goal of yoga is to realize that I am god – self-realization. The door was opened to our youth to all of these ideas.

Now, in 2 Thessalonians:2:4Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
See All..., it says something very interesting about Antichrist – it says, “He will sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” Now, as I mentioned, we believe that that’s the temple that will be rebuilt in Jerusalem, and that’s a specific person, Antichrist. However, I think there is an obvious, broader application. Our bodies are supposed to be the temple of God. “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of God? The Holy Spirit dwells within you,” Paul writes to the Corinthians. So suddenly we have – not suddenly, but, as you said, gradually; it’s a preparation process – we have millions of people in the Western world…not just a handful of yogis and gurus, or the East, but we have millions of people (and I mean many millions) in the Western world through altered states of consciousness, through yoga, through hypnosis, through various occult techniques, through drugs and so forth looking within what is supposed to be the temple of the true God. I believe that when God created Adam and Eve, the Holy Spirit indwelt them. When they rebelled the Holy Spirit left them. And now they began to worship at the altar of self. So this is the religion of Antichrist, and we have millions of Westerners through various techniques and an altered state of consciousness looking within what ought to be the temple of the true God and discovering self and saying, “I am God.”

Tom: Right, so even if they…

Dave: This is the religion of the Antichrist.

Tom: Right. Even if someone had a traditional background, as you say, a Judeo-Christian background, all of a sudden there’s a shift here. You begin to believe that we are divine within. Christian Science – this is religious science teachings that they’re…

Dave: It’s the…

Tom: …they’ve been around.

Dave: …it’s the human potential movement.

Tom: Right, innate within.

Dave: You’ve got an infinite potential, and you just have to realize this.

Tom: So as people, even though they had a traditional background, now there’s a different definition, a different understanding that’s certainly more appealing to the flesh than just saying, “Oh, well, I’m accountable to a transcendent God who – it’s His way or it’s no way, or we’re in trouble,” as opposed to saying, “No, here’s another idea: here’s an idea that certainly has appeal.” Also it brings, as you mentioned earlier, it brings power, the possibility of doing things that…reaching my potential, as it were.

Dave: Mm-hmm. Tom, it is just an extension of the rebellion against God…

Tom: And began at the Garden.

Dave: That’s right. It began in the Garden. That was where Satan said, “You can become a little god. You’re not going to die, you just get recycled. There’s this infinite potential. You need to be initiated into this Tree of Knowledge, this secret knowledge, with a dark and light side – black magic, white magic – and so forth.”

But also it involves some practical matters. I mean, here we are. We find ourselves on this earth. We’ve got a lot of problems. We have crime, we have wars – I mean, so many ethnic wars going on right now around the world. Now, you’ve got two possibilities: either we recognize that we are created by God, who created this universe, who put us on this earth, and we’re accountable to Him, and what we need to do is get back in a right relationship with Him. And if everybody would submit themselves to Him, then there would be peace, and God could…like Jesus said to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And God’s will would be done on this earth if man would submit to Him.

On the other hand, man doesn’t want to do that, because we’re very proud. And so the leaders of this world – whether it’s the United Nations, or the Arms Control talks, whatever it is – everybody is discussing how man will solve this problem. God doesn’t even enter into this equation. And I sometimes illustrate it like this, Tom, and it’s really troubling to me: Let’s say that I teach in New York; I teach a large – I’ve got 500 men in my Bible study, or men and women in my Bible study Sunday morning. And I tell them the truth, you know: Jesus Christ is the only hope, and so forth. But I’m also a delegate to the United Nations. I’m the United States representative at the United Nations. Monday morning, I pick up my briefcase and I head into the United Nations, and I sit down with other leaders from around the world to discuss the problems of the world. Do I dare tell them that Jesus Christ is the only hope? No! The United States would take me off the delegation. They’d laugh at me. So I sit down, I discuss humanistic possibilities, how man can solve his problems. Most of these people aren’t even Christians. They don’t believe it anyway, so we have proud man – he’s going to solve his problems. He’s literally playing God on this earth!

Now, the next thing that happens is he begins to become deluded. We were just in Africa recently and in South America, and I can tell you that you cannot get these people away from their ancestral spirits. You can’t get them away from their religion. In fact, in South Africa, I picked up a couple of books and I was acquainted, in fact, with the ex-secretary of this man. He claimed to be a Christian; he was sent on a scholarship to the United States to study in a theological seminary. Comes back to South Africa, he’s earning more than a million dollars a month; he is training the top people in major corporations over there in South Africa, and what is he telling them? He says, “We’ve got to get back to the ancestral spirits. We’ve got to acknowledge that there’s this power out there,” and he’s talking about human potential and so forth. So it’s very difficult for man to escape this.

You have an ecological gathering down in Rio de Janeiro. It was in 1992. The United Nations Secretary General addressed them: “Now we’re going to solve our ecological problems. We’ve got smog and we’ve got all kinds of problems that are on this earth. We’re destroying our environment.” So there they are, and he says, “We must now conclude an ethical and political contract with nature, with this earth, to which we owe our very existence and which gives us life.” Now, instead of God giving us life, it’s the earth. He says – now, this is the Secretary General of the United Nations addressing a gathering of top leaders from around the world to discuss the ecological problems. He says, “To the ancients, the Nile was the god to be venerated, as was the Rhine an infinite source of European myths, or the Amazonian forest, and so forth.” He says, “The mountains have a personality that commands worship and respect. The earth has a soul. To find that soul again, to give it new life, that is the essence of Rio.” So now we have…we’re going back to the earth, but we are the little gods. We’re going to solve our problem. And this is – I don’t know how you could find a better preparation for Antichrist, who will declare that he as a man is God. He will manifest these amazing powers of Satan, he will do what seems to be incredible miracles, and he will tell mankind, “This is the hope. You can all have these powers, and let’s get together and we will solve our problems!” Now, the youth…

Tom: Well, Dave, before we get there…well, we’re not going to get to that…

Dave: No, we’re not going to get to…

Tom: …this week, but we’ll pick it up next week. But there are some things about this that are just – to me, they’re startling. For example, some people would say, “Well, you know, all the stuff I’ve heard, this is just the scenario or concoction of fundamentalists. Conspiracy buffs…”

Dave: No, I’ve been telling you what’s happening, Tom; no conspiracy!

Tom: But see, that’s what’s really interesting, because we’re taking a book, the Old Testament, written – began 3,500 years ago, New Testament close to 2,000 years ago – this is laid out, and all we’re doing is reading what this book says, and now we’re looking to the heads of state! These quotes – and we have more of them – but the quotes are not quotes from just somebody writing in a vacuum, or, you know, in some dark area, some nobody. We’re getting all of this information, which confirms what the Bible has predicted over millenniums, and there it is. It’s just spelled out.

Dave: Mm-hmm. And, Tom, it is so basic, actually. I mean, there are two possibilities. Either God created us, or evolution created us. Either we’re the product of chance, or the product of design. And, you know, we’ve been over that before. We don’t have to argue that. You couldn’t possibly believe that life sprang spontaneously from dead, empty space, you know, and here we are. And yet, with all of that evidence, man is stubborn! Well, there’s so many religions, and I’m not even going to submit – how are you going to pick the religions, and so forth. So he’s going to solve his own problems. Look, it is so simple, it is so basic. Either we are going to go to God…. Why doesn’t the United Nations say, “Wait a minute, guys, we’ve made a mess out of this!” Sometimes I joke with people a little bit – maybe I shouldn’t – but I said, “Look, if I went to the race track and I bet on the same old nag day after day, day after day – it could hardly stagger out of the starting gate, it never finishes the race, and I keep betting on it, you’d say my loyalty to that horse far exceeded my common sense. And yet here we are: we’re going to bet on man!” It’s man that’s made the mess of this world, and he’s been very consistent about it. But still, we’re going to gather our leaders together, and we’re going to somehow pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and we’re going to come up with a solution at last to this? No. It isn’t going to work. Why doesn’t the United Nations say, “Hey, guys, look, we can’t do it. If there’s a God out there, would you please come and help us?” And of course we could tell you when God came as a Man, and so forth, and the only solution to this. But no, they’re stubbornly persisting.

And, Tom, this is what we’re trying to talk about: we’re trying to reason with people. But as you said, we’ve got a book here, the Bible, that was written by 40 men over a period of 1,500 years thousands of years ago, and it lays it out very clearly. And nobody can be an atheist – you cannot deny it, and that’s what we’re going to, to find what the solution to this is. And there is really only one hope, and that is in Jesus Christ. And I’m not just whistling “Dixie” and trying to bluster about this, I can prove it from the Bible. There is no doubt about it.